Merry belated Christmas and a Happy New Year one and all! Lol, go and check out the Christmas fic I posted - Everything That's precious. :) Thanks for those of you who reviewed it already and thanks to everyone who reviewed last chapter ^_^

And here's the next chapter. Hope you like it. Please review – I'm making it 5 reviews now, cuz I can. So yea, guys, review. Or no updates.

Enjoy!

12. Waking up Alone

They agreed to walk back to the palace before they started planning exactly what to do.

"So, as I was saying – do you know where Mai is?" Ty Lee asked her question again.

"No," Zuko answered bluntly. "I haven't seen her since I left her in the garden after … after Katara came over and she tried to make her hate me even more."

Ty Lee's eyebrows curved up in worry.

Toph snorted, "Good riddance."

"What did she do?"

"She kissed Firefly when she heard Sugar Queen coming, to make it look like Zuko was seriously cheating on her."

"Oh…"

Ty Lee noticed Suki trying to listen in on the conversation and smiled. The Kyoshi Warrior straightened up abruptly and pursed her lips.

Once inside, everybody filed into the kitchen where they found Iroh, brewing some tea. The retired general looked up, arching his eyebrows, and studied each of the faces of those who were to make up his new company. He sighed, "What's happening now?"

"Katara's missing too," Zuko informed him gruffly.

"And I can't find Mai anywhere," Ty Lee said, worrying.

"Alright, well, I have a suggestion to make," Toph announced. "We need to search everywhere for them. Let's assume that Mai is missing too, even though I think we can all say we don't give a flying hog-monkey's backsi–"

Ty Lee cleared her throat loudly, giving Toph a cold look.

"Anyway, what I'm saying is, let's search the whole palace from tip to toe, get the guards involved, alert the whole of the city and go around with pictures of them and ask people if they've seen them at all within the past few hours. Guys, this is really serious – it's not a game of hide-and-go-seek anymore… it never was. And this may well be the start of a new war. We need to fix this before it gets out of hand and –"

"Out of hand?" Sokka interrupted. "Excuse me, but the Avatar and my little sister are missing."

"And Mai!" Ty Lee added, indignantly.

"How could you think that it's not already out of hand?!"

"Look, Sokka," Zuko called, using as much authority in his voice as he could muster without yelling. All attention focused in on him and he continued. "Ok, it is already out of hand. Toph just means that we need to fix it before it gets even worse. I know it already seems like it's too bad to get any worse, but it can and will get worse if we don't hurry up and move. And we need to move together." He lowered his voice. "It's just like Toph said – for all we know, this could be the start of a new war."

Aang's head hurt as he opened his eyes. He was in an upright position, leaning forward slightly, his head bowed a little too far forward so that his neck hurt. His hands were chained above this head with iron shackles that strung up to the ceiling. His legs were encased in a metal box which was bolted down to the cold steel floor. There was a choker around his neck, restricting his breathing. He felt weak. And cold. There was not enough air for him to bend. There was no earth. Or fire. Or water. Anywhere. And there was no one else around either. He was alone.

Even though they'd agreed to work together, it was pretty obvious that no grudges had been dropped. Sokka, Hakoda, Bato and Suki did not group with any of the others when they split up to search the city.

It saddened Zuko quite a bit, but he understood that it was not the time to be worrying about the grudges at that moment. The focus was to find Aang and Katara. And Mai, as Ty Lee kept prompting.

Zuko had alerted all of the guards and a public announcement was being made to alert the citizens of Imperial City that the new Fire Lady (though Sokka disapproved of the title), Avatar Aang and Lady Mai had gone missing, and that Admiral Shang seemed to be the one behind it. The authorities were given the notes and wanted posters were going up for Admiral Shang immediately. As those looking for the missing went about the city, asking people if they'd seen any of them, or even Shang, they prayed that everything would turn out alright.

But with each person who apologized and said that they had not seen any of them, the glimmer of hope in each of their hearts faded away a little bit more…

She was cold. And whatever she was lying on was hard. And also cold. She felt woozy as she considered trying to open her eyes and when she finally did manage to peel her eyelids back, she found herself looking around at an eerily familiar scenery.

All around her was rocks and it gave the impression of being in a cave. But no matter how far she turned her head, she could find no opening by which anyone could have gotten in or out. But within the cave, there were strange green crystals that gave everything their glowing light touched a tinge of green.

"Oh boy…" Katara sighed, clutching her head. She knew exactly where she was – the underground city of Old Ba Sing Se.

Something – someone – next to her stirred. It startled her and she jumped to her feet. As the blood rushed down from her head, she saw black spots in front of her eyes and allowed herself to collapse to her knees again until she regained her vision. Then, she looked over to where that someone was and recognized who it was immediately.

"Mai?"

The girl did not answer – she just rolled her head to one side, evidently not quite ready to regain consciousness but well on her way nonetheless.

Katara pursed her lips and curled up on the ground where she was, hugging herself in a weak attempt to keep warm, trying to keep herself calm.

No one had seen the girls or Aang in the city. And there had been no sightings of Admiral Shang either.

"Ex-Admiral Shang," Zuko started correcting anybody who said it in front of him. Shang was not part of any of the Fire Lord's armies and was an official fugitive of the Fire Nation. He had lost his authority, position and title of 'Admiral' when Ozai had fallen.

But that didn't change the facts. Nobody knew where Katara, Mai and Aang were.

This was bad.

So how'd you guys like that chapter? :) I hope you liked it, because I'm not changing it – lol, my story! XP Anyway, tell me what you thought in a review. Remember, I need five (5) reviews, or I won't update. So please review. :) Remember, criticism is good. ^.^ Just don't overdo it…

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